


I Promise I'll Never Lose You

by VeriLee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Codependency, F/M, Kinda Dark, Kylo Ren is a jealous sort of feral demon shadow creature, Plaidam, Possessive Behavior, Rey is human, She likes his envy, brief mention of infant death in the past, but it has a happy ending too, dark fic lite, falling for flannel, for now, implied suicide, just not a very alive ending, mask kink now apparently, of the Persephone eating the fruit variety, plaidam fic, prob some weird ghosty demon shadow smut in the second chapter, referenced voyeurism, see authors note for more details on the voyeurism, yes this is tagged major character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2020-10-26 16:51:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20745533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeriLee/pseuds/VeriLee
Summary: “Did you have a nightmare, child?”Rey hesitates before she nods. It isn’t a nightmare, not really. These visions that have haunted her as long as she could remember. But how can she explain it to anyone?The shadowy figures that stalk around, reaching towards her, cold tendrils - barely more than air - that sweep across her hair and arms and hands and feet. Even awake, she cannot shake the feeling that she isn't alone, the shadow hovering at the edge of the light, not quite out of sight. It’s stronger when she sleeps - shadows taking shape, the visions of a dark forest and an old house caged by vines and barren trees.---All her life Rey has known she isn't quite alone. A shadow creature walks beside her, haunting her,protectingher, even if that means hurting the people around her.Until one fall, a new job in a new town brings Rey closer than ever to the thin divide between his world and her own.





	1. Give Me Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trish47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trish47/gifts).
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of House Plaidam's Falling for Flannel mini fic event: Fall-themed Reylo fics inspired by moodboards! This horror themed treat was inspired by the darkly enticing board below, created by trish47!
> 
> Unbeta'd and only minimally edited - sorry for any mistakes!
> 
> NOTE: I mentioned voyeurism in the tags. Rey mentions past partners and that her shadow creature was always watching and waiting, so that voyeurism could be considered non/dubcon voyeurism since Rey knew Kylo was watching but the other humans weren't aware of his existense. I wasn't totally sure how to tag that so I hope this explantion helps.

_"This is not the same world you live in_

_And I could breathe easier once I brought you back in_

_ You are not the same girl you have been_

_I promise I'll never lose you"  
_

_'Jigsaw Girl' - Toadies  
_

* * *

Rey wakes up in the night, panting heavily and heart racing, as if she’d truly been running, and not just in her mind. She tries to bite down on the cry that escapes her mouth - sharp and piercing in the still quiet of the room. She hasn’t been with Maz long but she's the nicest foster parent Rey has ever stayed with and she doesn’t want the woman to think she’s too much trouble. Nine year old girls are too big to be scared of the dark. But she can’t stop the tears from making their way out of the corners of her eyes, leaving tracks across her cheeks.

It’s too late. The door creaks open and a little, old woman with dark skin and darker eyes enters, surrounded by a faint halo of light spilling in from the hallway.

“S-sorry,” Rey whispers reflexively, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.” 

Maz waves a hand as she shuffles across the room and sits at the edge of Rey’s bed. “I was watching my shows anyway,” she says. “Are you alright? Did you have a nightmare, child?”

Rey hesitates before she nods. It isn’t a nightmare, not really. These visions that have haunted her as long as she could remember. But how can she explain it to anyone?

The shadowy figures that stalk around, reaching towards her, cold tendrils - barely more than air - that sweep across her hair and arms and hands and feet. Even awake, she cannot shake the feeling that she isn't alone, the shadow hovering at the edge of the light, not _ quite _out of sight. It’s stronger when she sleeps - shadows taking shape, the visions of a dark forest and an old house caged by vines and barren trees. 

“Nightmares are just illusions, Rey,” Maz tells her, gently wiping away the tears that stain her cheeks with the soft brush of her thumbs.

Mr. Plutt, the man she lived with before, would have scoffed and told her to _ “stop crying, and grow up, girl.” _ Something in Maz’s tenderness makes Rey bold.

“There’s something inside me. Something dark,” Rey confesses desperately. “It’s always been there, but it’s worse at night.”

“Not everything in the dark is bad, dear,” Maz says. “Fear and anger will take over you if you let it. But a little bit of darkness? That’s in all of us.”

A shadow moves, just at the edge of Rey’s sightline, darting just a hair closer and Rey knows that Maz doesn’t understand; that her words, as kind as they are, have nothing to do with the darkness that haunts her. But she sighs and nods anyway and leans in when the woman gives her a hug.

* * *

Rey is twelve when she thinks back to Maz’s words, considers them in a new light. She thinks maybe the old woman wasn’t quite right about the dark not being all bad. She can feel the anger, sometimes stronger than others, and she knows that the shadow is dangerous. But maybe it’s not dangerous to _ her. _

She’s at a slumber party at Tallie Lintra’s house. They aren’t friends - Tallie is the most popular girl in the seventh grade and Rey is decidedly _ not _ popular at all. But Mrs. Lintra made Tallie invite every girl in her homeroom class and so Rey is here. Her foster father, Mr.Threepio is nice enough, but out of touch; he doesn’t seem to understand that Rey hasn’t made friends at her new school, that going to this party is overwhelming and not at all fun. Maz wouldn’t have made her come but she got sick last year - really sick - and the social worker moved Rey to a new home. 

It’s not so bad at first; Rey sits off by herself and eats more than her share of pizza while the other girls play truth or dare. But while Tallie is nice enough,even if in a bland way, her friends are anything _ but _, and soon enough they decide to stave off boredom by picking on Rey, laughing at her worn out old army sleeping bag and nearly threadbare flannel pjs. 

It’s when Kaydel Connix really digs in - mocking Rey for not wearing a bra yet, and coldly tacking on that it’s because she doesn’t have a mother to take her shopping - that Rey feels a pulse of anger that isn’t her own. 

All around her, the shadow swells, nearly blacking out her vision even as she’s wide awake. No one sees the darkness but her, however, and though Rey is frozen with fear, something dawns on her. The anger isn’t directed at her. 

The shadow pulses once more and the mug of hot chocolate that Kaydel had been sipping from in between her litany of pointed jabs flies out of her hands, the scalding liquid cascading over her neck and chest before dropping and splintering into a thousand ceramic pieces on the hardwood floor. 

Soon the panicked screams subside and Kaydel has a cold, damp rag pressed to her chest as Mrs. Lintra is sweeping up the shards, sighing at the girls for getting too wild. Rey’s classmates draw the natural and easy conclusion that Kayel simply lost her grip on the slippery cup. No one else saw - or felt - what Rey did. But later, as she lies awake that night in her bag, once everyone else has drifted off to sleep, Rey smiles into the darkness and the shadow hums in satisfaction. _ She _ knows better.

* * *

It’s far from the last time the shadow hurts someone for Rey. She sometimes wonders if it happened before - if some of Plutt’s drunken falls were not actually due to the drink, or if Teedo, that camp counselor whose predatory smile was more of a leer, didn’t fall from the ropes course and end up in the hospital by accident. 

The shadow is still dangerous - Rey understands that. It still tugs on her at night, trying to pull her through the veil between it’s world and hers. Somehow Rey knows that if she follows, she won’t come back. But now that Rey watches for the shadow, waits for it and pays closer attention, instead of hiding from it, she discovers new things as well.

For one thing, there isn’t only _ one _ shadow. There is the one that hurt Kaydel, the one that stays closest to her. She feels his presence most often. She supposes she doesn’t know for sure that it’s a he, but sometimes when she’s asleep, he takes the form of a man in a mask, and something in the anger and temper of the shadow _ feels _masculine. 

But there are other shadows too. One that swirls near, and flashes sometimes with flecks of gold - but it’s sharp and painful when she sees the sparks, nothing pretty or glittery. It reaches out for her too, but the other shadow keeps it back. There are others too, that sweep past her, sometimes triling across her skin and other times just dancing at the edge of her sightine before moving on again. 

She has to be careful. Sometimes _ her _ shadow gets too angry. People get hurt; truly, not just burned with hot drinks or tripped or shoved. She’s fifteen when a teacher who failed her “falls” from a third story window and is paralized from the waist down. She’s sixteen when a pushy boyfriend gets in a car accident after dropping her off. She’s seventeen when her manager at Steak n’ Shake accuses her of theft then chokes on a cough drop in his office. 

The shadow never hurts her, but she is entirely sure it never _ will _ either. It gets angry sometimes, jealous, when she goes out with coworkers or classmates or brings a date home to her apartment. She likes it, the envy. But she's not sure how far she should push the shadow. She knows what he's capable of.

She comes home, tipsy and alone one night. It isn’t the nicest place, nor in a great part of town. But it’s what she can afford between working and taking classes after aging out of the foster care system and striking out on her own.

And anyway, she knows she is never truly alone - her shadow lurks and follows and entices and is more dangerous than anything else she could encounter in the most dangerous parts of the city. 

She’d been on a date with a redhead from her community college, who was snide but attractive. But all through dinner, and getting drinks afterwards, her shadow had tugged at her, trailing tendrils like invisible smoke along her arms and rustling like a faint breeze in her hair. The ginger was boring and her shadow was jealous, which sent a thrill through Rey. No one had bothered to keep her, all her life; not her parents, not any of her foster families, not even friendships that came and went like the tide. 

But her shadow wants her. It always has. It won’t ever let go. 

She talks to it when she walks through the door, away from the public eye. 

"You chased him away," Rey scolds, even as she begins to peel away her little black dress and trip towards her bed. "I wasn't planning on being alone tonight."

She doesn't really mean it. She's turned on and it has nothing to do with her date's lackluster attempts at flirtation. The pulsing sense of _ 'mine, mine, mine' _surrounding her all night is what has her keyed up. Sometimes she does like bringing a lover home - the spike of possession and greed as her shadow watches them only heightens her arousal. But she likes being able to talk to him, to tease him, too.

And though he's never corporal when she's awake, she can more vividly_ feel _ him reaching out and caressing her when they're alone. 

Rey catches her own gaze, glassy eyed and bright, in the reflection of the window before she drops to her bed, clad only in black panties. Her shadow grows closer, darkness clouding her vision and she grins brazenly as she trails her fingers over her body. It’s a show for an audience that doesn’t quite exist in her world.

Tendrils of the shadow follow her fingertips, a whisper of cold air against her heated skin, drawing up goosebumps in their wake. The hair on her arms stands up on edge, but not in fear as when she was young. It wasn’t always like this - it wasn’t until she started dating that the shadow’s reactions became more pointed. A quick spike of jealousy when she had her first kiss with Bazine Natel while skipping school when she was a sophomore, a pulsing sense of greed distorting her vision when she slept with Cassian Andor after senior prom.

She’s scared sometimes still - especially when the shadow gets angry. But not at times like this, when she feel his desire tangling with hers. Rey strokes and pinches and teases herself, working herself into a shivering and panting frenzy; the breath of the shadow mimicking her every move but unable to _ truly _ touch her. It’s like a sharp and chilly breeze that makes her gasp as the darkness threatens to overwhelm and consume her. When she comes with a broken and desperate cry, the room goes black, the shadow everywhere at once. Eventually her sight comes back to her as the shadow retreats. But it doesn’t vanish, hovering instead at the edge of her room, a satisfied purr of _ “mine” _ on repeat creeping into her mind. 

* * *

After two years in community college, Rey takes a string of jobs, each as boring and unfulfilling as the last. She makes enough to get by but not enough to transfer to a university without getting student loans. She feels like she’s treading water, waiting for a sign that will never come. 

The visions that occupy her mind when she sleeps only grow stronger and her shadow keeps her from making many friends. He tolerates the occasional fling or happy hour after work - watching and waiting, pulsing impatience and then rushing around her like a wave when she’s alone again.

But when she’s working at a garage, and goes out with one of the other mechanics, Poe Dameron, a second, and then a third time, he gets tired of being sidelined. Poe is working under a Mustang when the hydraulic lift malfunctions and he’s pinned under the car, shattering the bones in his legs. 

Rey feels dread and guilt when she tells Poe at the hospital that she’s quitting her job and won’t be seeing him anymore, but it’s better in the long run. He’s lucky to still be alive. She placates the shadow with early nights the rest of that week, and ignoring the texts on her mobile phone. 

She takes a job where she’ll encounter minimal people. She’s going to be a caretaker for church grounds in the small town of Chandrila in the foothills. The town was bustling during the silver boom of the mid-1800s but it’s glory days are long gone. It doesn’t pay much, but the brusque man who hires her after the shortest possible phone interview says she can stay in the caretaker’s house onsite. The lack of rent makes the meager pay much more enticing and Rey ends her month-to-month lease and packs up. The shadow practically vibrates with excitement, pleased to have her all to himself.

She stops for gas and lunch at a truck stop on the way and the cook behind the counter shakes her head when Rey says where she’s going. 

“They say that place is haunted,” the woman, who looks somehow too young to be as tired and weary as her eyes indicate, says. “They can never get anyone to stay for more than a few months.”

Rey just shrugs. “People say that about any church with a cemetery on site,” she replies. It’s more than that, however. She knows hauntings can be real - she’s been haunted all her life. But if it is, she’s not sure the lingering spirits of dead miners and pioneers could be any worse than what she has always known. 

Her casual attitude shifts when she arrives at the church, however. The man she spoke to on the phone, who seems much too grumpy for a cheery name like ‘Pastor Luke’ greets her with a nod, but Rey has a hard time concentrating on his words as he shows her around. There is something unsettling and strangely familiar about the church and the wilderness surrounding it. It’s at the edge of the town, a forest springing up behind it. She feels the shadow watching her expectantly. It's stronger somehow, has been growing stronger ever since they left the city. It feels almost the way it does when she's asleep, almost physical. 

It isn’t until they walk around to the backside of the church, along an overgrown and ill kempt path bordering the cemetery _ (“We haven’t had a caretaker for the past couple of months,” Luke explains) _ towards the caretaker’s house that Rey’s heart leaps up into her throat.

She knows the little stone cottage as well as she knows her own face. The trees cling to rustling leaves in every shade of red and gold, and the sun filtering through them to scatter little patches of light make it almost picturesque, not oppressive. The vines, dotted with late blooms of honeysuckle, are still against the walls and windows, not writhing like snakes.

But she would still know the quaint building anywhere. It has only occupied her dreams for as long as she could remember, beckoning her to walk through the heavy wooden door. In her dreams, she always stayed away. 

Only to walk right through it now. 

The shadow coils around her when Luke leaves her in the house. He sleeps in a small apartment built onto the side of the church, and a sea of bones and dust lay between them. If she were to scream, the sound would be muffled by the stone walls and the trees and the expanse between the chapel and her. 

_ Would she scream? _

She feels more afraid of the shadow world than she has in years, sensing that she's much closer to the border between and her own world than she has ever been before. 

But her shadow is holding her, clutching her tight. He's _ happy _ , she realizes. She's not sure she's ever felt _ quite _ this pulse of contentment from her shadow before. She can feel him in her mind. He's chanting, _ "us, home, mine, home." _

* * *

The next few weeks are illuminating for Rey. She busies herself with mowing and trimming and pulling weeds under the September sun, still hot despite the changing of the seasons, and collapses into bed at night. Her shadow is clingier than ever but calmer too. He crowds her vision and blankets her when she sleeps but doesn't tug as fiercely as he sometimes does. He seems to be waiting. 

There aren't many parishioners that attend service on Sunday but there are two nuns that show up twice a week to tend to the inside of the church as Rey keeps up the outside. 

It's one of these nuns, an old woman who smokes like a chimney, resolutely ignoring the no smoking sign as she vacuums, that tells Rey more of the stories the townsfolk gossip about. The stories that she had shrugged off at the diner a few weeks before - what now seems like a lifetime ago. 

The tales took different forms over the years, no one quite agreeing on what haunts the caretaker’s house and the woods around it. Some speak of a baby boy, the son of Pastor Solo some two centuries before, that had been swapped with a changeling. Of a miner that had been possessed and how when the demon was driven out, it lingered near the church. Of a young child that had died in the fire that burnt down the grand house that the pastor's family used to live in when the town was young. 

"All superstition and hogwash," the tired nun says, rolling her eyes.

But that night, Rey's shadow is restless and pushy. She tries to sleep but it tugs incessantly towards the door. She puts a pillow over her head and it yanks it away, a hand, almost human feeling, wraps around her wrist and Rey nearly screams. 

Her shadow has never felt so real and physical before. It lets go but the skin of her wrist is still cold. Shaking, Rey climbs out of bed and follows, afraid to defy him. 

The shadow leads her through the grass, damp from an evening rainstorm, to an old, simple tombstone. It's the grave of a baby named Ben Solo, only three months old, buried almost 200 years before. The child from the changeling stories hadn't been swapped with a fae or demon at all, but had died in infancy. Rey drops her eyes as she kneels in the grass, feels a pang of sadness for the child lost so long ago, for the family that mourned him. 

But her shadow pulses with frustration, coils around her neck and tilts her chin up to look at the inscription again. Despite its age, the stone is still smooth and shiny; it must have been made of the finest marble. Rey stares in confusion until it finally dawns on her. 

"You?" she asks, her voice a whisper. A calm comes over her shadow and Rey knows she's right. 

She traces her fingers across the date carved into the stone and the shadow shivers, as if she is touching him. 

She wonders if there have been others like her, who could sense his soul at the edge between this world and his or if he's been alone for nearly two hundred years, waiting. 

_ "Just you."_

Rey gasps and startles. The words come, not only from inside her mind, as they usually do when he communicates with her, but are carried on the wind around her, creating a strange sort of echo. 

"Ben," she whispers, trying out the name on her tongue, and the shadow leans into her, like an animal seeking affection. 

The clouds overhead shift and a streak of moonlight brightens the gravestone in front of Rey. She can practically see her reflection in the shiny surface. 

But she pauses. It isn't her. 

Her fingertips are still touching the stone but the hand reflected back at her is larger than her own, and smoother than her own callused skin and too vivid to be a reflection at all. 

Curious and hardly daring to breathe, Rey carefully opens her hand, presses her palm flat against the marble. The other hand does the same and Rey exhales a shuddering breath. For a fraction of a second she swears she can feel skin pressed against her own, rather than shadow or stone. Overwhelmed, a single tear trails down her cheek. And all around Rey, the shadow hums, louder than ever.


	2. A Beautiful Mess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh a bit late, but here's an update complete with some shadow creature smut and surprise mask kink?
> 
> Also, the chapter count went up. Oops?
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!  
And thank you to @newerconstellations for the beta!

_"Laid on my bed, a beautiful mess, _

_ my whole world, jigsaw girl"_

_'Jigsaw Girl' - Toadies_

* * *

An autumn storm blows in and the lingering warm weather of a summer that hasn't quite let go is swept away. Strong October winds yank the leaves from the trees and scatter them to the ground; the determined few that cling to the branches are pelted by rain until they too give up the fight. The once-rich palate of red and gold scenery is reduced to muddled browns, edged by gray skies.

There is less mowing to be done now, but still plenty of work: trimming away dead vines, and near constant raking of leaves. It doesn't always rain, but more often than not the fall air is misty and damp and Rey comes back to her cottage each night chilled to the bone.

She starts a fire in the hearth and sits on the ground in front of it, wrapped in the heaviest blanket she can find. Her shadow stays near her, watching and waiting. She can feel the cool tendrils coiling around - a sharp contrast to the heat emanating from the fire.

He’s calmer here. Then again, Rey is alone most days, save her sporadic conversations with Pastor Luke or the nuns. There is no one to anger her shadow; no one to rile him up and provoke his jealousy. He waits for her all day, lingering close at hand until she finally falls into bed, desperate for sleep.

He isn’t so patient then.

Her eyes flutter closed and she finds herself in that hazy dreamworld again. It isn’t as frightening now - the dark woods full of empty trees with claw-like branches, and the vines slithering along the walls of the cottage, barren but for some dry twisted leaves, shriveled berries. The house is her home, and she knows it to be cozy, not foreboding. The plants, the trees are stripped bare because of the changing of the seasons, nothing sinister.

_ And yet… _

And yet the house is different here, in this place between worlds_ . _Somehow Rey knows it’s more than a dream - there is something real to be found when she closes her eyes on the waking world.

Though Rey knows she is sleeping soundly in her bed inside, in the dream, she is outside once again. Tendrils of smoke rise from the chimney and dissipate into the sky, despite the fact that Rey put out the fire before she slept. There is a faint glow from behind the curtains in the window, even though Rey is sure she turned out every light. The woods themselves are darker, filled with moving shapes and figures, the other shadows from _ his _world.

Something shifts behind her, the gravel of the path crunching under slow and steady footsteps. She knows what it is before turning around. _ Who _ it is.

Two arms wrap around her, weighty, almost as if he’s really here. “Rey.” The single syllable is low and deep, unlike the breathy whispers that usually run through her head when he communicates with her, more thought than word. But still it’s muffled.

Rey turns in his arms, looks up at her shadow, in the physical form he only takes when she’s asleep. It's startling, seeing her constant companion of smoke and spirit take the form of man. He’s a good deal taller than her - and Rey isn’t exactly short - and clad in black robes, wearing a mask made of dark and gleaming metal.

“Ben,” she replies, the name still foreign on her tongue. She’s thought of him for so long as the shadow, or _ her _ shadow, or simply _ hers _ , that the name seems almost too small.

“That name is dead,” his voice, muffled by his mask, returns.

“What should I call you, then?” Rey asks. But Ben - her shadow, _ whoever _ \- doesn’t answer.

He tilts his head and she already knows what he’s going to say - the same thing he’s asked her every night since she found his grave. “Come with me.”

He uncoils his arms from around her, takes her wrist in one gloved hand, tries to pull her towards the little house. The house that both is and isn’t the same as the one she lives in. He’s patient by day because he knows she’s weaker at night, her resistance is crumbling.

_ Home. Forever. Mine. _

Rey can hear him in her head again, the words jumbled and eager. She shivers, even though she isn’t chilled. It’s not cold when she’s asleep; _ he’s _ not cold when she’s asleep. She thinks she should say no, stay away from the doorway, though it’s getting harder to remember why.

“I don’t know,” she says honestly. “I’m not ready.”

“For just awhile,” he whispers. “You don’t have to stay.”

This exchange has grown familiar too. But Rey is never sure she believes him. He’s never lied to her before, yet every night her dreams feel more and more real. Every day, she feels more and more lost in the real world, as though the fog that wraps around her - around the whole town - isn’t just from the changing weather. She’s afraid to lose herself.

“Come with me,” he says again, “please.”

His voice is so mournful, she can’t deny him any longer. “You promise I can go back?”

“If you want to,” he promises and Rey shivers again. _ She does want to go back, doesn't she? _

She follows him into the little house; as outside, it's the same but a little different, a little off. As if someone has tried to recreate the scene from memory, but gotten things wrong here and there - the colors a little too muted, the room a little too tidy, the dead fire still blazing.

Wordlessly, her shadow leads Rey to the bed. The bed that _ should _be occupied by her own sleeping body, but is empty instead. She's tired and the room is warm. Lying down, arms entwined with Ben's, she vaguely wonders if it's possible to fall asleep inside of a dream before consciousness slips away and her mind goes blank. 

* * *

Rey wakes the next morning with a start.

She sits up, frantic, wondering which version of the cottage she's in. It takes a moment for her to place the details, confirm that braided rug is the right color, that the fireplace grate is firmly closed. Of course, most telling is that Ben is shadow and smoke again, dancing just at the edge of her field of vision, rather than a real and solid form lying in her bed.

As the relief washes over her, it's tinged with a hint of regret. She misses the weight of her shadow's arms around her, the sense of belonging she felt within them. A small part of her didn't want to wake up in the real world. That regret scares her almost as much as if she hadn't woken up at all.

Rey rises from her bed, hurries to wash in the cramped bathroom, and readies herself for the day. Belatedly, she realizes she feels more refreshed and well rested than she has in weeks. Rather than spend the night in fitful dreams, trying to turn back from the house, the woods, she had gone in willingly. Letting go of that fight, she had slept like the dead in her shadow's arms.

Rey goes about her day, an aura of contentment all around her. It's not only her own sense of relaxation, but her shadow's too; he's happier today.

"It doesn't mean anything," she tells him as she rakes up mushy leaves along the perimeter of the cemetery. "It doesn't mean I'm staying."

But there is no bite in her words and the shadow knows this. _ We'll see, _ she hears echoing in her mind.

Instinctively, Rey turns her face towards the small headstone she knows is near the center of the graveyard. The one where Ben Solo was buried. He'd been so young, an infant barely in this world before being taken to the next.

He is certainly no child now; Rey thinks of the hulking man who held her as she slept last night.

What must it be like, to have known only that world? To have grown up a shadow creature, a demon, and not a man? Her shadow bristles. He doesn't like when her thoughts follow this path.

But Rey can't help it. She wonders if it will be different for her when… No. _ If _ she follows him for good. Will she remember her life in this world, long for it? Or will it be lost to her? She shivers, but not from the chilly October air.

* * *

“I want to kiss you,” Rey whispers, trailing her fingertips over the smooth metal of Ben’s mask, as she lies on the bed, curled on her side and facing him.

She follows him without hesitation now, when her dream-self opens its eyes to the shadow world. Each morning, as he promised, she wakes up back in the living world. Each morning she resists the daylight a little more.

He doesn't reply, only reaches up with one gloved hand, to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. In turn, Rey reaches into the hood of his cloak, seeking the edge of the mask, but the helmet covers his entire head.

"I want to see your face," she says, her fingers trying and failing to wedge underneath the metal and find purchase. It won’t budge.

Her shadow covers her hand with his own. "When you stay with me," he promises, his voice distorted by the mask.

"I can't." Rey has said these words so many times, but they lack conviction.

"You can." Ben's hand travels back to Rey's head, to cradle her cheek, to stroke her hair. It's sweet, but placating.

"I'm going to kiss you anyway," Rey says, defiant. She fixes her eyes on his face, on the silver and black grate hiding his eyes from her.

He doesn't stop her from pressing her lips to his mask, a weak imitation of what she really wants. Demanding, Rey peppers kisses along the cool metal and down to the fabric of his cowl, she tugs at it, eager to find his skin and he growls when her lips finally touch the soft skin of his neck, a sound she can hear both inside her head and out.

There is something strange about the feeling of his flesh, so much more than the air and shadow she feels by day but too smooth, as if it might vanish under her touch. But it's _ him _ and she wants more, and he doesn't seem opposed.

Rey pulls and tugs, buries her hands in the seemingly endless layers of robes to expose his skin, mark it with her teeth and lips, mouthing at his arms, his chest, his navel - anything.

Ben mirrors her actions with his fingers, since he cannot kiss her; he drags leather covered fingertips across her skin, kneading her flesh, pinching her. One hand pushes her nightshirt up, bunching the fabric near her shoulders. He tugs at one sensitive nipple and then the other and Rey moans, arching into his grasp.

He’s quick to tug at her underwear, yank it down so that he can explore her heated skin with the smooth, soft touch of his gloved hands. He’s barely touched her and she’s already wet, aching for him. Dexterous fingers slide between her folds. So many years of watching her, _ feeling _ her, he knows just how to tease her, but it’s so much _ more _ than those nights before, shadow and air grazing her skin and leaving her hungry.

_ “Ben,” _ she gasps, when he slides one finger, then another, inside of her. He doesn’t bristle at the sound of his old name this time, too lost in her.

Rey fists the heavy fabric of his robe in her hands, runs a palm across the smooth metal of his helmet, wishing, again, that she could feel his lips against her own. The want is almost enough to make her cry out in frustration.

He can hear her need, feel her desire - she knows he can, just as she can feel him - and in response, he nuzzles his head against her palm, bumps his forehead against her like a cat. But it isn’t enough.

“Stay with me,” he pleads again, the roughness, the desperation in his voice apparent. She doesn’t understand why it should be different if she stays, but she can hear the promise, see the visions in his mind of her own fingers tangled in dark hair, of lips, full and red against her core.

Rey whimpers from the illusion alone. “Someday,” she breathes.

Ben shifts on the small bed, sliding down between Rey’s legs and her heartbeat picks up, curious and anticipating. He can’t bring to life the vision he teased her with, yet he moves with intention, purpose.

His fingers don’t leave her, don’t cease in their ministrations, but Rey jumps as the cool metal of his mask grazes her, a sharp contrast to her fevered skin. He nudges her again and - _ ohhh _ . Her initial cry of surprise morphs into a moan as the ridges of the mask brush against her clit.

He does it again, harder this time. And _ again. _

Rey’s hips roll and rise to meet him and she reaches to hold the helmet, fingertips slipping against the metal while she holds him tightly to her body. She can feel every groove, every ridge and seam of the mask in her heightened state, can hear Ben’s ragged breath from under the metal and inside her mind. With every roll of her hips, he twists and thrusts his fingers within her and it isn’t long before the tension is building, low in her stomach. All at once she’s shuddering from the sensation, her orgasm washing over her, taking her by surprise in its suddenness and intensity.

For a handful of moments, the room is silent but for their panting breath, Rey's last tiny whimper as she comes down. Ben lazily withdraws his fingers, and before she can mourn their loss he begins tracing patterns on her mound and thighs and belly in lieu of kisses.

Rey tugs at him, gathering him in her arms and kissing his neck, his helmet, before pushing him on his back and climbing on top of him. Pliant, her shadow obeys, tilts his masked head and watches her, waiting for her next move.

Rey nearly growls in frustration at the layers of fabric concealing him from her. She's eager to discover him, but his garments almost seem to have a mind of their own, coiling back whenever she lets go, cocooning him. Her nails scrape over his abdomen for only a moment before the woven black fabric is whipping back. He chuckles at her ire for the shortest of moments before she finally frees him, one hand wrapping purposefully around him. He's swollen, hot and hard against her palm and he grunts her name as he bucks into her grasp.

Rey isn't sure whether she is surprised or not at how very _ human _ he seems. She wonders idly if it's an illusion for her in this dreamworld, if his real form is something altogether more sinister. But her powerful shadow - the being that frightened her when she was too young to understand him, that protected her as she grew, that she craved as she became a woman - is compliant and needy beneath her, moaning for her touch as she strokes him. She feels powerful and can't find it in herself to care if this body itself is a mask as well.

He wants her, she can _ feel _ it, _ hear _it inside her mind and coupled with her own lust, the sensation of his desire is heady and overwhelming. He drags a finger across Rey's mouth and she opens for him, taking the gloved digit between her teeth, caressing it with her tongue. She can taste herself along with the leather and feels a spike of envy from Ben, that he cannot.

When she finally shifts above him, sinks onto his hardness, drawing him inside, it's like coming home and they sigh in unison. They move in sync, a dance of rolling hips set to a symphony of grunts and cries as they chase that peak. Rey is still shaky from her first orgasm but already she feels the telltale tingle running through her veins. It’s almost overwhelming - she can feel both his pleasure and her own.

Ben grips her hips hard as he thrusts upwards one last time before spilling within her and begs again, his voice raw and desperate, "Stay with me."

Rey shudders as she follows him over that edge and between heavy breaths she promises, "Soon."

When Rey wakes in the morning, it’s only with a regretful sigh that she can open her eyes. She misses the dreamworld when she's awake, it feels more real than her own world sometimes. But as she shifts in the bed, begins to sit up, she realizes it _ is _ more real than she could have even guessed.

Because though she is mournful that Ben's arms are no longer around her, his presence is not gone. She can feel her shadow all around her, caressing her skin like a morning breeze. Yet she's also sore in a pleasant sort of way, and the inside of her thighs are marked with the sticky evidence of last night's passion.

It wasn't a dream at all. 

  
  



End file.
